Tag Archives: Hannie Rayson

Giveaways, Theatre

ACCLAIMED ‘HOTEL SORRENTO’ FOR RIVERSIDE – AND WE HAVE GIVE-AWAYS

Production photography: Cathy Ronalds

Family, country and culture collide in the award-winning comedy/drama HOTEL SORRENTO by one of Australia’s most significant playwrights, Hannie Rayson. 

Playing at Riverside Theatres from 31st July to 4th August, this poignant dramedy, which inspired the AFI Award-winning Australian film of the same name, boasts a stellar cast including Ruth Caro (Home & Away), Dennis Coard (Home and Away, (Miss Fisher’s Murders)) Kim Denman (All My Love) and Joanne Booth (House Husbands). They are led by critically-acclaimed director, Denny Lawrence (Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine) and an exceptional creative team. Continue reading ACCLAIMED ‘HOTEL SORRENTO’ FOR RIVERSIDE – AND WE HAVE GIVE-AWAYS →

Charity Event, Theatre

Chain Play @ Bangarra Studio Theatre Sydney Theatre Company

One of the doyens of Australian playwriting David Williamson has contributed to Playwriting Australia's group play fundraiser
One of the doyennes of Australian playwriting David Williamson has contributed to Playwriting Australia’s group play experiment

Playwriting Australia, the national organisation supporting new writing for the stage, is presenting the inaugural Chain Play, a celebrity fundraising gala crammed with the best playwrights and theatre artists from around the country.

Twenty of Australia’s most exciting and celebrated playwrights will join forces to offer Sydney audiences a raucous night of group creativity.

The way that CHAIN PLAY works is that each writer has been asked to contribute a scene of a brand new play. Once the nominated playwright has written the opening scene then he/she passes the play onto the next playwright to write their scene and so it goes until the play has been completed. Continue reading Chain Play @ Bangarra Studio Theatre Sydney Theatre Company →

Theatre

HOTEL SORRENTO

Sarah Purdue as Hilary, Melanie Robinson as Meg, and Gemma Munro as Pippa as the three sisters in Hannie Rayson's HOTEL SORRENTO. Pic Mark Banks
Sarah Purdue as Hilary, Melanie Robinson as Meg, and Gemma Munro as Pippa as the three sisters in Hannie Rayson’s HOTEL SORRENTO. Pic Mark Banks

‘Melancholy’ is the title of Meg’s autobiographical novel that has brought her fame and a tilt at the Booker Prize, and which sets the sparks flying within her family in leading Australian playwright Hannie Rayson’s 1990 play, HOTEL SORRENTO. It is also a good word to describe the tone of Rayson’s play which has a Chekhovian feel to it, that deep sense of time passing, and the inevitability of the winds of change sweeping away everything in its path.

HOTEL SORRENTO charts an emotional reunion between two sisters, Meg (Melanie Robertson) and Pippa (Gemma Munro) who have been living overseas, Meg in London, Pippa in New York, and their elder sister, Hilary (Sarah Purdue) who has been the carer of their frail father, Wal (Barry Moray) and is also the mother of a sweet ten year old boy, Troy (Oliver Beard). The reunion is held at the family home in the pretty, sleepy Victorian seaside town of Sorrento situated on the Mornington Peninsula.

Continue reading HOTEL SORRENTO →